Commenting on Thursday's big counterterrorism speech, John Yoo decides that President Obama isn't being hawkish enough in the War on Terror. "Now, the U.S. will only use drone strikes against terrorists who 'pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons,' where there is a 'near certainty' that the target is present, and there is a 'near certainty' that civilians 'will not be injured or killed,'" he complains. "The president risks rendering impossible the only element of his counterterrorism strategy that has bred success." He goes on to point out that "there is almost never a 'near certainty' that a target is the person we think he is and that he is located where we think," an argument normally used by drone war critics, and suggests, perhaps presciently, that "Obama either is imposing a far too strict level of proof on our military and intelligence officers or the standards will be rarely followed." Yoo further worries that "if the U.S. publicly announces that it will not attack terrorists if civilian casualties will result, terrorists will always meet and travel in entourages of innocent family members and others -- a tactic adopted by potential targets of Israeli targeted killings in the West Bank." That brings us to the part that just kills me.

Said Yoo:

Neither of these standards -- near certainty of the identity of the
target or of zero civilian casualties -- applies to wartime operations.
President Obama is placing impossible conditions on the use of force for
what can only be assumed to be ideological reasons.

Yes, of course. What possible reason could a president have for taking great care to avoid ordering the death of innocent people, other than ideology? I can't think of any. How shameful that policy-making is so ideological these days. You can't even shoot Hellfire missiles at foreigners whose identities you're not quite sure about anymore, just because they might be innocent. And to think I mocked the folks who accused Obama of having a Kenyan, anti-colonial worldview. Next you'll tell me that he issued a blanket rule against crushing child testicles.

About the Author

Conor Friedersdorf is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he focuses on politics and national affairs. He lives in Venice, California, and is the founding editor of The Best of Journalism, a newsletter devoted to exceptional nonfiction.

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And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today.

— Deuteronomy 15: 12–15

Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other man receives damage by his transgression: in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek reparation.

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An attack on an American-funded military group epitomizes the Obama Administration’s logistical and strategic failures in the war-torn country.

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The Wall Street Journal’s eyebrow-raising story of how the presidential candidate and her husband accepted cash from UBS without any regard for the appearance of impropriety that it created.

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Members of Colombia's younger generation say they “will not torture for tradition.”

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